DRT Annual Report 2013

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to read Development Research and Training’s 2013 Annual Report which gives you an overview of our work over the last 12 months. DRT has remained focused on its mission of contributing to poverty reduction through action research and one of the landmarks of 2013 was the launch of the 2nd Chronic Poverty Report which asks “Is anybody listening”. The report indicated that one in ten households in Uganda is still trapped in chronic poverty and unable to meet their basic needs. It further shows that poverty in Uganda is multidimensional, making it difficult for those trapped to escape it.
As DRT, we believe that the state has a social contract with all its citizens including that 10% which wallows in extreme poverty and even passes it on to their children. Development strategies, policies and programmes that improve the living standards of only the 20% of the country’s population are unfair, unjust, unsustainable and outright wrong.
Chronic poverty is not only a Ugandan matter; it remains an East African and global challenge. In this regards, DRT in partnership with Development Initiatives, launched the Investments to End poverty report in October 2013. At the regional revel, DRT together with Economic Policy Research Centre with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) convened a regional conference on “Financing Social Protection”. This conference demonstrated the critical role of natural resources and how these can be used to support investments in social policy.
DRT intensified its work on Open Development platform, including widening the scope beyond the data availability. We deepened this to involve actors at the district and lower levels where service delivery takes place. In partnership with Development Initiatives, we investigated how open data could contribute to poverty reduction in Kenya and Uganda through its impact on resource allocation.
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